


Speculum

by Ariss_Tenoh



Category: Coldfire Trilogy - C. S. Friedman
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-13
Updated: 2014-09-13
Packaged: 2018-02-17 05:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2298371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariss_Tenoh/pseuds/Ariss_Tenoh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damien sees something fascinating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Speculum

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on April 8th 2010. This is set near the end of the last book.

Damien woke up suddenly, quietly, and with complete awareness. He wondered why. The room was dark so that meant morning was still far away. He sat up in his small bed and looked at the other bed on the opposite side of the room and was stunned into silence.

 

The young man was lying on his bed, silver moonlight falling on him from the square window set high into the wall. Damien had cornered the young man, more a boy really, and coerced him into having dinner with him and then invited the boy to share his room. It had been bitter-sweet to talk with his friend. Though the unacknowledged history loomed between them, heavy and threatening to shatter their fragile truce.

 

Whatever he'd expected from inviting the boy over and prolonging their separation, it certainly wasn't this. He stood up and very carefully stepped toward the other side of the room, avoiding the creaky floor board near the middle. He came within an arms-length of the bed and stared.

 

Erna's moons affected the land, the seas, the fae, and some claimed even the humans living on Erna. Damien never thought it could do _this_.

 

The moonlight pooled around the boy and created a watery effect. There were two images juxtaposed over one another, or as Damien thought continuing the water metaphor, like one image was of an object above a pool's surface and another image was the object's reflection below.

 

The images did not match.

 

Damien stared, fascinated in spite of himself.

 

The boy's dark skin, lean body, and long dark hair were solid, yet another image floated above him in the same posture of sleep. An adult man, curled on his side, with very pale skin and golden hair; hair that seemed to float as if moved by underwater currents.

 

He wondered if the eyes would be that pale shade of grey if they were to flutter open. Then his intellect and common sense reasserted itself. What he was seeing meant the Neocount's sacrifice wasn't complete, that what he shed of himself wasn't as total a surrender as he thought. Damien frowned, remembering something his mentor back west had said... about Old Earth philosophers who argued that the body retained its own set of memories independent of the mind.

 

Quietly, he stepped back to his own bed and lay down. He curled on his side to keep his guest in his sight. Damien huddled into the coarse blankets and smiled. It was going to be amusing to inform the boy of what happened tonight. Perhaps he would even be able to utter that name without endangering the boy.

 

With that thought swirling in his mind, Damien closed his eyes with a small smile on his face.

 

~ End ~


End file.
